Over the past week or so, there has been a lot of controversy over Square Enix’s recent announcement that Final Fantasy XIII would be heading to the Xbox 360 in Europe and North America. A lot of PlayStation 3 owners feel betrayed by Square Enix’s decision to port the title to the Xbox 360, especially because for many people; Final Fantasy XIII was their sole reason for buying a PlayStation 3.

Now you can understand why a lot of PlayStation 3 owners are annoyed, because they could’ve saved themselves a couple of hundred dollars by buying an Xbox 360 rather than a PlayStation 3; of course that’s only if they wanted a console solely for the next generation Final Fantasy title. On the other hand though, there are a lot of reasons why Final Fantasy XIII coming to the Xbox 360 is a good thing; and I’m writing this article to explain a few of those points.

One of the major advantages of Final Fantasy XIII coming to the Xbox 360 is the fact that Final Fantasy XIII’s development process will be sped up. You’re probably wondering “How does that work? Square Enix have already said that they will be finishing the game on PlayStation 3 first then port it to the Xbox 360!” In saying this you’d probably be right, though what you also have to take into consideration is that since announcing Final Fantasy XIII on Xbox 360; Square Enix have moved the development process from the PlayStation 3 console to the PC.

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It’s a well known fact that the PSP can play PlayStation games downloaded from the PlayStation Network, however it’s not a well known fact that the PSP can play any EBOOT PlayStation title as long as your system is set up correctly. If you’ve ever tried playing an unofficial EBOOT with Custom Firmware then you’ll know that you’re often greeted by “the black screen of infinite”, this method will show you how to bypass that screen and play absolutely any PlayStation title.

Alright, before you do anything there are several things that you are going to need to play PlayStation games on a PSP running custom firmware version 3.80 M33 all the way up until the most recent release, 4.00 M33. Before you do anything, check that you have what is required to complete this tutorial from the list below.

• PSP Running Custom Firmware Version 3.80 M33-4.00 M33
• Some form of connecting the PSP to a computer, whether it be by USB cable or Memory Stick Duo Pro Card Reader
• Popsloader 3.80 M33
• PSARDumper
• 3.72 Firmware EBOOT
• A PlayStation game EBOOT, our example in this game is going to be a Final Fantasy VII Multi-Disk EBOOT

Note: The following method is a proven, tried and tested method. There is absolutely no chance that doing this will brick your PSP as long as you are running CFW 3.72 M33+, preferably 3.90 M33 as this is the CFW I used whilst creating this tutorial.

1. First things first, connect your PSP to the computer by either using a USB cable or a Memory Stick Duo Pro Card Reader.
2. Once you’re connected, download Popsloader 3.80 M33 and extract the RAR Archive into the PSP/Memory Stick Duo Pro root folder. For example, extract the RAR Archive to ‘X:\’ meaning that the contents of the Zip Archive will be found in ‘X:\SEPLUGINS’ (X:\ stands for the USB slot that your device is connected to).
3. Alright, now you’ve got to download PSARDumper and extract the contents to ‘X:\PSP\GAME’, meaning that the contents of the Zip Archive will be found at ‘X:\PSP\GAME\newspsardumper’. PSARDumper will extract the official PlayStation emulator files from the official 3.72 firmware update that you will put onto your PSP in the next step.
4. Now download the 3.72 firmware EBOOT and copy it to the root folder, in doing so it’s location will be ‘X:\EBOOT.PBP’.
5. Turn on your PSP and navigate to ‘GAME > Memory Stick > NEW PSAR DUMPER’ and press X.
6. This will run the PSARDumper, a series of options will become available once the program is launched – just press Square and PSARDumper will begin decrypting the required files from the official 3.72 firmware update.
7. After a few minutes the process will be completed and you will return to the PSP’s XMB. Turn off your PSP and reconnect it to your computer.
8. The root folder of the PSP’s Memory Stick Duo Pro will contain a new folder containing the decrypted files called ‘F0’, from this folder you need to copy the following files:

‘X:\F0\kd\popsman.prx’, ‘X:\F0\kd\pops.prx’, ‘X:\F0\vsh\module\pafmini.prx’ and ‘X:\F0\vsh\module\libpspvmc.prx’

9. Once you’ve copied these files paste them into the ‘X:\SEPLUGINS\popsloader’ folder, renaming each file so that it has 372 just before the extension. For example, popsman372.prx.
10. If you so wish, you can now delete the F0 folder from the PSP.
11. Disconnect the PSP from the computer, and boot it up in Recovery Mode. For those of you who don’t know how to do this, hold down the R Button and flick up the power switch.
12. From this menu select ‘Plugins ->’ and click popsloader.prx [POPS] to enable the plugin.
13. Congratulations, you now have your PSP set up to emulate PlayStation titles such as Final Fantasy VII – if this is the first time you have ever ran Popsloader you’ll be given a list of firmware’s to chose from; just select the ‘3.72’ option. Make sure you chose 3.72 otherwise you’ll have to start the entire process again.
14. One last thing, Popsloader automatically launches upon selecting a game (you should store games in the ‘X:\PSP\GAME’ folder); if you want to play a PlayStation game make sure you have copied the game into the GAME folder - for example in Final Fantasy VII’s case it would be in the folder ‘X:\PSP\GAME\Final Fantasy VII\EBOOT.PBP’.

That concludes the tutorial on how to set up a PSP for emulating PlayStation games, however due to the nature of PlayStation games and the fact that they are not designed for playing on PSP (unless they’ve been released on the PlayStation Network), you will suffer from the occasional glitch. For example, sometimes when you are exiting a battle in Final Fantasy VII the screen becomes engulfed in weird little glitches; however there’s often a common fix such as exiting and re-entering the appropriate area.

By pressing the HOME button on your PSP you can change the emulation settings, for example choosing ‘Other Settings’ allows you to make the game widescreen; whilst changing the ‘Controller Settings’ can allow you to use the PSP’s Analog Stick rather than the default D-Pad. There is also an option to switch discs; however this only works with Multi-Disk EBOOT’s such as the one I used in the example.